On Monday, Pennsylvania hunters took to the woods for the first day of firearms season, but now more than ever, they’ll be wondering if the deer they shoot might be infected with chronic wasting diease.

The deadly neurological disease was found in two captive deer in Adams County this fall. A captive deer on the same farm escaped into the wild last month.

State Game Commission officials have established a disease management area in parts of York and Adams counties to monitor for the disease in the wild. So far, it has not been found.

“If it got into the wild population, it would be the worst thing for Pennsylvania,” said Mike Strickhouser, South Central Regional Director of the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania. “It’s something we need to take seriously.”

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Calls placed to the Southeast Region offices of the Pa. Game Commission in Reading, Berks County, seeking to discover if area hunters had any concerns about the discovery of chronic wasting disease were not returned before deadline Monday.

Nathaniel “Nat” Miller of Dover Township hunts on his family’s farm in Conewago Township, which is in the deer management area. He still plans to go out this fall, and if he harvests a deer, he’ll take it to be tested.

“We’ve just got to live with it,” he said outside a recent meeting on the disease at the York Expo Center. “We’ve just got to deal with it as best we can and go from there.”

It’s still too early and confusing, and not enough facts are available yet about how the disease might affect the wild population, Miller said.

While he’s worried about what the disease might mean for future generations of hunters, Miller said, he’s also concerned about everything else going on in the world.

Robert Korte of Red Lion said he, his wife and two children hunt, and they share their harvest with others. Korte said he doesn’t hunt in the disease management area, but if he did, he would be going elsewhere.

While research shows no evidence that humans are at risk for the disease, people are advised not to eat the meat of an infected deer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Korte pointed out that chronic wasting disease is in the same family as “mad cow disease,” which is believed to be transmissible to humans.

“I don’t want to take a chance,” Korte said.

Barry and Betty Kellison of Warrington Township attended the meeting about the disease at the fairgrounds because they are concerned. Barry Kellison said he has a friend in West Virginia whom he hunts with, and the disease is found among wild deer in that state. If it gets into Pennsylvania, the deer herd will be dying.

“It’s going to be bad for all the hunters,” he said.

Barry Kellison said he still plans to go out and hunt. His wife, Betty, said they are taking the Game Commission at its word that the disease is not in the wild herd.

“They’re doing the testing, so they should know,” she said.

The problem, she said, is how long it will take to get test results back for a deer that a hunter has tested for the disease. State Game Commission officials have said it will take two weeks or longer. Hunters want to eat and get their meat processed.

Rick Watts of Monaghan Township said he shot two doe in the disease management area during archery season, and he’ll be going back out.

“I’m not fearful of it right now,” he said.

Watts said he worries what impact the disease will have on the future of the sport in Pennsylvania if it does get into the wild population. He fears that hunting license sales will drop. Those sales help to protect more than 400 species of wild animals in the state.

“We’d lose billions of dollars,” Watts said.

Some area businesses are concerned about the affect on the hunting industry, too.

“It could be devastating over the long term,” said Harry Strohman, co-owner of J.L. Miller Sons Quality Meats in Spring Garden Township.

He hopes researchers can find a solution to the problem. For now, he says, the state Game Commission is doing the best it can.

Terry Kauffman, owner of Terry’s Taxidermy in Dover Township, said he hopes it doesn’t hit. If it does, it’s probably going to be bad unless it can be stopped.

The disease does not present the “fire in the Sistine Chapel” that it did about a decade ago, said Matt Dunfee, coordinator for the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance. Years ago, wildlife biologists were concerned the disease would wipe out the deer and elk herd, he said, but states that have been dealing with it for decades have not seen dramatic reductions.

What research has shown is a younger herd because the disease is long lived, Dunfee said. Does can still give birth to fawns, but deer with the disease do not live to an old age.

In some states, he said, hunters are just tired of dealing with the disease. Some leave notes on the deer sample, saying they don’t want to know if the test result is positive, Dunfee said.

A Penn State expert also cautions hunters about overreacting to the disease. It might have been in low levels in the state but not been detected, said David Wolfgang, extension veterinarian and field studies director in veterinary and biomedical sciences.

Hunters in other states have learned to live with it, and it hasn’t ruined their sport, he said in a news release. The number of licenses sold in Wisconsin, for example, have almost returned to levels seen before chronic wasting disease was discovered there.

Still, it is a disease that needs to be taken seriously, and hunters and the state Game Commission need to be pulling in the same direction, Wolfgang said.

“If we work really hard over the next year or two, we can probably corral this pretty well,” he said.